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Before Kurt Tippett made his Sydney debut in Round 13 last season, the Swans had lost only two of their previous 14 matches.
One was to eventual 2013 premiers Hawthorn at the MCG, while the other was to a Geelong side that was in the midst of winning 10 of their first 11 games.
Among the many wins was a clean sweep of the 2012 finals series, culminating in a memorable premiership.
Since Tippett’s first appearance in a Sydney jumper, in a loss to Port that can now be seen as a sign of things to come, the Swans have won 8 of 16.
Despite beating Carlton in a final in that run, only one of those wins was against a side that finished in the top eight in 2013.
Any way you try to cut it, it’s a fall from grace.
Factor in the addition of key forwards of the calibre of Kurt Tippett and Buddy Franklin, two men who were supposed to not just join Sydney at the top of the table but cement them there, and the fall has been staggering.
Several losses late last season were written off as the toll of a long year, worsened by a lengthy injury list affecting key players. The Swans had to call on their depth players, and the likes of Brandon Jack, Harry Cunningham and Jesse White all stepped up to have an impact at different times.
But was any loss of playing personnel that calamitous? They had 15 players miss no more than two matches, and their much-lauded midfield, where most matches are won and lost, barely missed a minute between them.
White immediately left the club after his best season, collateral damage from the Franklin signing. But he would also have been surplus to requirements, so there can be no complaints about his leaving.
Joining White, for varying reasons, were Shane Mumford, Jude Bolton, Andrejs Everitt, Marty Mattner, Mitch Morton, Tony Armstrong and Jed Lamb.
Mumford would probably be the only rock solid choice in the best 22 this year, though you’d imagine the versatile Everitt would have found a spot after playing consistently good football in 2013.
With those players obviously not considered, looking at what might be a best team for the Swans compared to last year, there are minimal changes.
Alex Johnson didn’t play at all last year and won’t this time either. Tippett didn’t play for the first half of the season when Sydney were winning, and Adam Goodes didn’t play in the second half when they weren’t.
Goodes, 34 years of age, can barely be considered a missing player at this stage after such a lengthy absence. Any matches he can play will be a bonus, and coach John Longmire surely isn’t relying on his return for any sustainable success.
Ryan O’Keefe, the Norm Smith medal-winning warrior, at 33 has either been overtaken by the game or is being phased out. 32-year-old Rhyce Shaw, based on some of his abominable play on Saturday night, can’t be far away from the same treatment.
Ted Richards, as game, brave and tough to beat a key backman as there is in the game, is also well on the wrong side of 30, as is Lewis Roberts-Thomson, the valuable role-player, albeit having become injury riddled and hardly inspiring confidence anyway.
Josh Kennedy, Jarrad McVeigh and Dan Hannebery went missing in the deplorable final quarter against GWS. The loss was humiliating and could have been prevented if these legitimate gun players of the competition had stood up as senior players are supposed to.
Kieran Jack was similarly quiet against Collingwood, failing to impact the match in any meaningful way. Gary Rohan was a promising AFL player before he broke his leg, but has returned looking a barely average VFL one. The Swans are effectively a man down whenever he’s on the ground.
Sam Reid has barely evolved from game 1 to 58. A fluid mover, lovely hands, horrendous set shot, large periods of nothingness and good for no more than one goal a game. All as true at the beginning as now.
All put together, worrying signs abound, and that’s without touching on the negative publicity that Franklin has been attracting, central among it being whether or not his arrival has caused an irreparable rupture in the famous Bloods culture.
At first look, Buddy is playing a very similar role to last season at Hawthorn, where it was commonly accepted that Alastair Clarkson was changing the game-plan with a view to not relying on Franklin as heavily. Whether this was for the good of the side in the short-term or with a longer view is up in the air.
Either way, Sydney has spent a lot of money on a ridiculously long contract to start using Franklin the same way as a club that was phasing him out.
The phrase ‘traditionally slow starters’ has been thrown around by those springing to the Swans’ defence, but while true enough under Paul Roos, it’s factually incorrect under John Longmire. Prior to this year, in the three seasons with Longmire at the helm, Sydney hadn’t lost a game in any of the first three rounds.
Last year, it took half the season for people to realise that West Coast weren’t going to live up to their pre-season premiership favouritism, as they stumbled and bumbled to 13th on the ladder.
The year before, it was Carlton that couldn’t make the eight, despite also being anointed the one to beat for the flag. In 2011 it was Fremantle that fell off the map. The fall-out for all three clubs was the same – a change of coach at the end of the season.
Can the Swans turn their season around? Of course they can. We know what they’re capable of at their best, it’s just that we haven’t seen it for quite some time. John Longmire is not going anywhere.
But there does appear to be a deeper malaise afflicting the Swans, and a side that is losing holds themselves open to attack from all corners. Rarely do destabilising rumours and tabloid innuendo do the rounds about sides that are winning.
Boy do they need to do so against Adelaide this week.